Currie to head antitrust body …
FORMER Ofcom boss Lord Currie has been chosen as the first chair of the Competition and Markets Authority – the UK’s new antitrust regulator.
Currie will earn £185,000 a year for the three-day a week commitment, serving as chair of the body for a four-year term beginning this summer.
The CMA is part of the government’s regulatory streamlining, replacing both the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission.
Currie’s main regulatory experience comes in the form of seven years as the chair of Ofcom’s board. He was also one of the Treasury’s Panel of Independent Forecasters during the John Major years, and was made a life peer in 1996.
Recently, he has served on the Leveson inquiry’s panel and as a non-executive board member for Dubai Financial Services Authority and the London Philharmonic Orchestra among others.
Bruce Kilpatrick, head of competition law at Addleshaw Goddard, said yesterday that Currie was a “sensible appointment”, adding: “it may also mean the CMA favours a lawyer in the chief executive role, as the OFT typically appoints an economist and a lawyer in each of its senior roles.”